For the month of July our food and household spending breaks down like this:
18% – household (includes prescriptions)
53% – grocery
29% – dining out

Overall, we were $21 over budget.

What we did well: stocked up on household goods (50% of the expense was water filters that will last us 6 months), bought free after rebate items

What we need to do better: not overbuy groceries (our pantry is plenty full), re-evaluate dining out strategy

August goals:Stay within budget!
Buy only groceries that are needed for the given week
Only purchase household goods that are FAR or needed immediately (ie toilet paper)

On a positive note, our current budget is only 38% more than my personal budget was when I was single. Considering that I married a 6′ 3″ amateur chef, I’d say we’re doing pretty good. And our monthly spending is down about 20% from what it was 6 months ago. If we have reduced spending hat much during a time of inflation, I’d say we’ve done a good job (especially considering how stocked our pantry currently is). Now I just need to actually cook from the stockpile.

This week I got two super exciting things in the mail. One is my first Walgreens rebate gift card – I got $11 back on a gift card for an initial OOP of $9.98 with an original retail $19.96. Not too shabby.

Also, today I received my first PaperBackSwap book in the mail. So far I’ve mailed out four books, have another three to mail out tomorrow and have gotten one. It is a bit of an outlay in postage, but I figure it is still well worth it. I have accumulated quite a few books over the years and am working on organizing and only keeping the books I’ll re-read multiple times. I am a big reader, so this does leave quite a few still on the shelf. I started PBS by only posting books I wanted to get rid of that Powell’s wouldn’t buy back. (Although I do still have the bag of Powell’s books sitting in the living room – I need to actually send them in!)

PS – Yes, I fully realize that I use too many exclamation points and connector words such as “however” and “also.” What you don’t see are the times I write and then go through and edit out a bunch before I send/post.

So, I’ve always been somewhat frugal, at least compared to those around me, but have been trying to step it up a notch in the last few months. I’ve been lurking on all sorts of PF/frugal blogs and figured I may as well start my own. No real goal here other than getting my thoughts on paper and sharing what’s working for me. I tend to way overthink things and have been pondering a blog for awhile. Nothing special about tonight, I just decided to take the plunge.

In good news, I participated in the Safeway Summer Marathon promotion and so far have gotten over $150 worth of groceries for $47 OOP! And I still have a $10 catalina left.

I going to have to ramp up to this blog thing slowly. I’m just not sure yet if it’s my cup of tea or not. We’ll see shortly! I am one of those people that gets frustrated when people create a blog, share it with everyone they know and then don’t update it.

On the savings front, I hit up Walgreens on Sunday for the new August FAR (free after rebate) items. I spent a total of $10.77 ($6something OOP) and will get $12 back in Walgreens giftcards. That’s what I call good shopping!